


February 14, 2021

by Barkour



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Mission Fic, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime Reyes' Valentine's Day plans don't go as--well, planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	February 14, 2021

Jaime was still dressing when the alert came through.

Khaji Da said, _This would go quicker if you allowed me to do it._

“I know how to tie a bow tie,” Jaime said, struggling with the ends. He needed to tuck the end in like this—no, like that— “No, I shouldn’t have used a clip-on!”

He got his finger stuck in the knot. Disgusted, Jaime flapped his hand against his chest.

 _The Justice League is on-line_ , said Khaji Da.

Jaime scrubbed at his hair and sighed. “Patch them through. How did I even knot it like—” He tried to worm his finger free.

The channel opened, and though Jaime was alone—alone but for Khaji Da—in his dormitory room, he straightened. The Justice League had that effect. His hand hung from his throat.

“Blue Beetle,” said Martian Manhunter, as means of greeting. “The Federal Reserve in Houston is under siege by a trio of persons evidently armed with alien tech. The local police are ill-equipped. You are the closest League member.”

Jaime looked down to the three roses on his dresser. They were tied together with a length of pink ribbon. The superhero-suited teddy bear had fallen down beside them.

 _You have thirty minutes_ , Khaji Da warned.

“No problem,” said Jaime, “I got it covered.” The suit activated, subsuming suit and tie beneath. He ripped his finger free. “I’m on my way.”

“I will see if anyone else is available to offer assistance,” said Martian Manhunter.

Jaime threw open the window and leapt out, wings extending to catch his fall. Thank God it was night, he thought. The last thing he needed was to have to explain why it was Blue Beetle was jumping out his dorm window.

“Great,” Jaime said. He kicked his boosters on and took off after the lower range of the tropopause. “I was looking for a Valentine’s Day date.”

 _You already have a date_ , said Khaji Da; then the scarab said: _You are making a joke_.

The suit compensated for the thinning oxygen and cooling air. Jaime followed the coordinates the suit fed him. The wind tore at him. Far, far below, the earth fell away. Six-lane highways shrank down to delicate, scribbled lines. Cars winked out. Individual lights, too. He wondered if he would ever grow tired of flying.

“Yeah,” said Jaime, thinking of his reservation at The Inn at Dos Brisas as he rocketed over the Texas Hills. He really hoped they wouldn’t charge his credit card (his _emergency_ card) for a no show. “The punchline is it’s a miracle I had a date at all.”

 _Inaccurate_ , said Khaji Da. _Many less attractive of your species are able to procure sexual mates. I believe he will understand_.

“I—thanks,” said Jaime. He was smiling. “You’re right. I mean, why wouldn’t he understand? It’s not like he doesn’t know or like we’re—”

 _Adjust course_ , Khaji Da interrupted, _or we will collide with a commercial airliner in ten point two seconds_.

_ *  _

The Federal Reserve burned. Smoke gushed out a seam torn in its side. Infrared was a no go; the fire masked subtleties.

 _Scan for targets_.

Jaime cut Khaji Da off. “I need a low-expansion foam. First priority’s stopping the fire.”

The Reserve building was relatively isolated, alone at the corner, but a park faced it across the street and the fire was quickly growing. On the street, a police officer was waving and shouting at Blue Beetle.

 _Firefighters are en route_ , said Khaji Da. _Detecting concentrated amounts of_ —

The fire exploded; something green ran through it, like a wave of energy. Stone hurtled out of the depths. The police officer below dove for cover behind her vehicle. Jaime dropped into the gutted building.

Smoke and flame filled it, and the suit’s filters snapped into place. Reserve oxygen pumped into his mask.

“Any reports of the bad guys beating the scene?”

 _No_.

“Then they’re still in here,” said Jaime. The bank’s closing hours had passed, so, with the exception of whoever had broken in, it should have been empty. He hoped it was empty. The suit reshaped around his arm, forming a stiff hose that extended some few inches past his hand. He began laying down foam; it expanded rapidly, crushing out the fire as it reached out at him.

“Scan for whatever that was—that energy wave.”

 _Trace amounts detected ten meters forward on the level above_ , Khaji Da reported immediately.

The suit flashed warnings at him indicating structural weaknesses. Jaime punched through the ceiling and onto the second floor.  The smoke was thickest here even as it funneled out through the hole ripped through the end, and the floor had already given way in large patches. That green light flickered, like phosphorescence in the walls.

Sections of the roof blocked the way; the wreckage of a vault door rose out of the barricade. It came at him out of the smoke and he braked hard to keep from cracking against it. He rested his hand on the jutting rubble. Energy shivered through the suit.

Someone on the other side was crying.

“Can you hear me?” Jaime shouted. He slapped his hand against the rubble. “I’m here to help you! Stay calm!”

 _Suggest cannons_ , said Khaji Da.

Jaime shook his head. “Too dangerous. They’re right on the other side. They might get caught in the blast, and then—”

They are criminals, countered Khaji Da. This is their creation.

“We’re going another way,” said Jaime, and he looked up at the potted roof. If he went over—

The smoke tore around him, whipping up and out in a sudden, violent rush. Jaime stumbled in the wake of the wind, and a man in red caught him. A hand settled on Jaime’s breast.

“Sorry I’m late!” said the Flash. “You would not believe the traffic, and _so_ not eco-friendly, too. Like, come on, people, what happened to the better, brighter tomorrow? But hey, nice consolation prize: I’ve got cute guys just falling right into my arms.” He winked and bounced Blue Beetle back up. “So what program are we looking at here?”

“Three people trapped on the other side of this mess,” said Jaime. He shook his head. “I can’t blast through without hurting them. You think you could—”

But the Flash was already gone. Khaji Da warned that the energy readings on the far side of the barricade were intensifying again. If another wave of energy was expelled, the building would collapse.

“We’ll get them out of here before then,” Jaime said, “and I need more of that foam now!”

The Flash emerged, laden with—two bodies, a man thrown over his shoulder and a small woman tucked under his arm. Something within the reserve snapped, and the shudder resounded through the building.

“I can’t get the third person,” Flash shouted. “He’s wearing a harness—some sort of major weirdo energy field—”

Jaime blew through the roof and plummeted down on the opposite side. Here the smoke shimmered, black with green shot through like veins. The man was pinned to the floor, though the floor had half-given out beneath him so that he dangled out over the fire below. His eyes were huge and red, bloodshot with smoke, but a green film covered them as it covered all of him. The harness strapped to his chest had a broken control panel that flashed in warning.

 _Ten seconds remaining_ , said Khaji Da.

“Don’t worry,” Jaime said to the man as calmly as he could. He felt over the harness, trying to find some place where it would come apart. “I’m going to get you out of this.”

“Please,” said the man, “please, please, oh, God, oh, God—”

“Scan for weak points. Can I cut him out of this thing?”

The man was weeping. He clutched at Jaime, grabbing at his arms, clinging to them.

“Sir,” said Jaime, “you need to let go—”

Three strobes went off in his vision, marking the harness. His right glove melded into a plasma cutter and Jaime thought a quick and wordless gratitude at Khaji Da. He bent over the man, and the man screamed, trying to pull back.

 _Five seconds_.

The first point in the harness broke, and the energy film clinging to the man shivered. Jaime pressed his free hand to the man’s chest to hold him still.

“I’m trying to help you!” Jaime shouted, but the man was lost to panic.

The second point cracked and then gave way.

Flash poked his head through the barricade. “What’s taking so long—”

 _Two seconds_ , said Khaji Da. _Evacuate now_.

The harness finally came apart under Jaime’s hands, and he grabbed the man and threw him at Flash. His arms came out. Flash’s fingers went wide. He caught the man against his chest.

“Run!” Jaime yelled. “Get everyone out of here now!”

Flash ran.

The broken lengths of the harness, still joined at the overloaded control panel, began slowly to slip through the great hole of the floor. That sickly green light rippled—pressure built in Jaime’s chest—Khaji Da activated the suit’s boosters at a strength just below what would blast craters into the earth—and the building ruptured. Blinders dropped over Jaime’s eyes. Instinct drove him to bring his arms up before his face.

 _Safe distance reached_ , said Khaji Da.

Jaime brought his arms down. The stars littered his field of vision. He said, “Bart—”

 _Flash has evacuated the area. I do not believe there are any casualties_ , said Khaji Da, _but the amplifier remains active_.

Jaime looked down from the sky at the burning husk of the reserve. It was a wild torch lighting up the green. The firefighters were a street away and quickly closing in.

 “Do you know how to shut it off?”

 _Yes_ , said Khaji Da.

He plunged back into the inferno. The suit’s sensors guided him. A cascade of rubble had come down upon the harness. He had a moment’s thought of that rubble splintered and sent as missiles through the air at the next discharge. Jaime blasted it clear.

The control panel had been further damaged, a corner of it all but broken off. Energy throbbed through it, and when Jaime grabbed it up out of the ash he felt that wave pulsing in his teeth. There had been times when his knowledge had saved the day. Now, he relinquished control to Khaji Da.

Khaji Da reformatted the left arm to plug into a small port hidden in the tangled wires sticking out of the panel. Data streamed through Jaime’s view screen: energy read-outs, some alien jargon left untranslated, a countdown he had no trouble deciphering on his own—

It was accelerating.

“We’re running out of time here,” Jaime muttered, “please tell me you’re almost done—”

“Jaime?” That was Bart. Of course he came back, that was what he did, not the hero thing (although yeah, that, too) but the running back in after Jaime thing—

“I’m all right!” Jaime shouted. “But you need to get out of here real quick—”

 _I recommend altitude_ , said Khaji Da.

Jaime whipped back around. The control panel was sparking.

“You said you could stop this thing—”

 _I can_ , said Khaji Da. _However, it is possible that I will not be able to do so before it discharges again._

Flash crouched beside Jaime. In the lingering smoke, the streaming flames, he glimmered like a length of fire too. He touched Jaime’s shoulder. Thirty seconds remained.

Jaime surged upright, holding on to the control panel. As Flash rose, too, Jaime grabbed him by the logo on his chest—the material stretched as his hand twisted in it—and he leaned down to kiss Bart across the mouth.

“I gotta go take care of this,” Jaime said. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

Then he shoved Flash back—Bart said, “Wait—” and reached for him—and, cradling the harness as it began now to whine, Blue Beetle roared into the sky. Clouds grew large and then he shot through them.

“What’s the likelihood this thing will cook me alive when it goes off?”

 _Survival is likely_ , said Khaji Da evasively.

“Well, that’s good,” said Jaime.

The mesosphere rapidly approached. It wasn’t likely it would set the atmosphere on fire—assuming oxygen concentrations were sufficient, there still wasn’t enough raw material to feed a fire—but alien tech was alien tech. He’d shot foam out of his arm earlier. Jaime pushed up higher.

“Hey, listen,” he said, as the sky darkened far beyond night, the atmosphere thinning steadily around him, “if we don’t make it. I’m glad you, you know. Changed my life.”

 _You have changed mine as well_ , said Khaji Da. _But the sentiment is unnecessary_.

“You got it?”

 _This will be the last discharge_ , said Khaji Da. _Advise throwing. Three seconds_.

“Oh—shit,” said Jaime. He stuck his legs out to brake, brought his arm back hard, and threw.

The harness, what was left of it, rotated as it broke out of the exosphere and into the vacuum awaiting outside it. Momentum carried it; that was all. Light shivered over it once, then again, and then, at last, it blew.

Jaime was already pushing down, away, leaving that behind him. Only the faintest rush of the explosion buffered him, and by then he was gone, gone.

“You did good,” said Jaime.

And the scarab, pleased, said, _I performed as stated, Jaime Reyes._

_ *  _

The firefighters had the situation on the ground under control. If they hadn’t, Flash was still there. He was tapping his foot fast enough, and he’d been doing it long enough, the pavement had begun to erode beneath his toe. As Jaime sank back down to Earth, his own arms spread, Flash crossed his arms over his chest.

Jaime called, “Where are the—”

“Ambulance took them.” Flash tipped his head back, indicating—a hospital somewhere. “Don’t worry. They’re all handcuffed. The last guy kept raving that you tried to kill him but I told him he was thinking of the wrong meat.”

Jaime alighted on the ground. “Thanks for the assist.”

Flash sighed—his shoulders drooped—then Bart smiled up at Jaime through his mask.

“No problem,” he said. His smile grew catlike. He lifted his chin. “Now you owe me. I had to pass up a date to come help you crash this mode.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Jaime. “You had something special planned for Valentine’s Day?”

Bart shrugged and unfolded his arms to gesture broadly with his hands. “It doesn’t mean much to me—every day’s Valentine’s Day as far as I’m concerned—”

“Wow, ese,” said Jaime, “that’s really romantic. You should definitely tell your boyfriend that. He’d really like it.”

“Hey! That’s a good idea,” said Bart brightly. “I think I will! See you in a flash, Blue Beet- _le_.”

And then, like that, he was gone.

“Blue Beetle!”

He half-turned to find, yep, reporters coming up the avenue after him. He wondered what had taken them so long. It couldn’t have been the fire. That’s not nice, Jaime chided himself, because it wasn’t enough that he had one voice in his head to get back in line.

“Blue Beetle,” said the nearest reporter as she thrust her microphone at him. “Blue Beetle, a word—”

“Sorry,” he said, his wings thrumming, “I really can’t—”

“—your heroics today—”

“I’ve got a date,” he called down to them. “You know, Valentine’s Day? I’m already late. Sorry! Maybe next time!”

_  *  _

The light was on in his dorm room, though his roommate was out for the night and it was nearly eight. The reservation had expired a half hour ago. Jaime had left his keys in his room and he didn’t feel like trying to hide picking his own lock with an armored finger, so he ducked in through the window. 

Bart was stretched out across Jaime’s bed watching TV. He was underdressed for the weather: t-shirt, frayed jeans, mismatched ankle socks (one white, one red). A pair of worn-out sneakers rested under the window sill. Bart glanced away from the TV. A smile darted across his face.

“What took you so long?”

The armor melted away, leaving him standing there in a white button-up and his dad’s old suit jacket. The bow tie was ragged, cleaved through when he’d changed suits earlier. Probably the end was over by the door. Khaji Da retreated.

“Traffic,” said Jaime.

Bart scooted over, maneuvering so his back was to the wall and there was space for Jaime to sit beside him.

“Yeah,” said Bart, “I heard the traffic was really bad tonight.”

The bed dipped beneath Jaime’s weight, and Bart, already loose-limbed, took it as an excuse to slip down against him. The shirt collar dug into Jaime’s throat. He bent anyway to kiss Bart. Bart pressed his foot against the back of Jaime’s calf.

“I like the teddy bear,” said Bart. “Very twentieth century. But with a futuristic twist.”

They both considered the teddy bear, now righted on the dresser. It smiled vacantly at them. The goggles were off slightly, but the red-and-white Impulse costume stood out nicely against the bear’s dark fur.

“You don’t want to know how much it costs to get someone to custom-make a costume like that,” said Jaime.

“Grife,” said Bart, “money. Oh, hey! I got you something, too!” 

He zipped off the bed and Jaime, off-balance without Bart warm beside him, tottered forward. He caught his weight on his forearms and then relaxed, watching Bart tear through his backpack for—

“Ha! Got it.”

Bart tumbled back onto the bed, pushing a red heart-shaped box at Jaime.

“They might be a little crushed,” he said. “But chocolate is still chocolate. Right? And I didn’t open it! I was going to give it to you at the restaurant, but—”

Jaime smoothed his hand over the plastic wrapping. It crinkled under his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just the League—”

Bart grimaced, his teeth showing briefly, and he grabbed at Jaime, pulling him down. “No—no way, hermano, I shouldn’t have said anything. You did good. Okay? You were totally crash. Like, the Blue Beetle I fell feet over head—”

“Head over feet,” said Jaime, starting to smile.

“Anyway,” said Bart loudly, clutching Jaime around the shoulder, “he’s the kind of hero who goes out of his way to try to talk super-villains out of their super-villainy. Who rescues robbers from a burning bank! That they set on fire! With their own alien tech! Like day old meat!”

Jaime kissed him again, now on the cheek. Bart had showered—his hair smelled of Jaime’s shampoo—and his skin tasted clean, nothing at all like smoke or ash.

“I had this whole thing planned out,” said Jaime to Bart’s eye as he turned to kiss the corner of it. “This whole romantic thing, with flowers and champagne. I was going to romance the heck out of you.”

“Wait,” said Bart, “let me check with the admin—yep, it’s working. I’m romanced. I am way romanced.”

“I haven’t even done anything yet,” Jaime protested.

Bart made a buzzer sound. “You’ve saved the world, like, twenty times. You’ve saved me I think probably forty? You just saved three bad guys today! And,” he said, “you still let me eat your Chicken Whizees.”

Jaime laughed and dug his knuckle into Bart’s ribs. Bart squirmed half-heartedly.

“Only because I haven’t caught you, ese—next time you do it, you’re mine. And don’t think I’ll go easy on you either.”

“All right,” Bart agreed. “But I want to give you the second half of your gift first.”

“What,” said Jaime, “more chocolates? I don’t know, Bart. That might be a little too much for me to handle.”

“Well, you’re going to have to help a little,” said Bart, “’cause I kind of forgot. How do you say ‘can I suck your cock’ in Spanish?”

Jaime said, “What the—” and shoved Bart. “Man, don’t just say that shit!”

“No, no,” said Bart, snickering, “I’m serious, I totally forgot. It’s like, life is so good I can’t remember how to say this stuff. But it’s important to me. This is very important to me. So if you tell me how to say ‘can I suck your cock’ then I will, in exchange and as an expression of thanks for your work as my tutor, spoiler alert, suck your—”

Jaime covered Bart's mouth with his hand. His fingers curved to follow the line of his jaw. He was leaning over Bart, and his shadow fell across Bart’s face. There had been times, long ago, when Bart had gone still, his face blanked, his manner reclusive at Jaime’s touch, above him. Now Bart—wriggling under Jaime—opened his mouth and licked Jaime’s palm so Jaime whipped his hand back.

“Can’t we make out first?” Jaime asked, dragging his hand over his—nice, neat dress shirt.

“It’s all crash to me,” said Bart, smiling so his eyes went soft at the edges, and he reached out to draw Jaime near.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, one day I'll write them banging, anyway.


End file.
